


The Swordsman's Swing

by ImpossibleClair



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Angst, Beheaded Cousins, Don't copy to another site, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Pain, and kitty too because I love their interactions, anne is having a rough time but don't worry the other queens are there, anyway there's stuff about the execution in there so heads up about that, because yknow. she dies. but not really?, jane being a mum to anne because I need more of that in my life, mum jane, pun not intended, reincarnation is a Fun Time, the character death tag is there just as a precaution, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22479037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpossibleClair/pseuds/ImpossibleClair
Summary: Reincarnation is a messy business. You're mostly fine. You're alive, at least. But death isn't going to let you forget where you came from
Comments: 7
Kudos: 137





	The Swordsman's Swing

It was a cruel twist of reincarnation that despite being reborn safe and well, the queens remembered the final moments of their old lives. Death was supposed to be the end, and it mixed ill with being returned to life. There was a feeling of it, a taint that could be tasted on the back of the tongue when the memories crept unwittingly into the present. 

  
Anne could taste it. It was bitter and dry, like blood turned to dust. She swallowed, but the taint remained. She couldn’t seem to be rid of it. She wished she could get a glass of water to wash it away with, but she was kneeling on the wooden scaffold, blindfolded, so she’d just have to deal with it. 

  
She should be more panicked. She was about to die. But she was calm, feeling the morning sun on her face. 

  
She didn’t need her eyes to see the sword cleaving toward the back of her neck. She was both within herself and without, watching the scene from somewhere in the trees. The sunlight glinted off the executioner’s heavy blade as it swung, and for one timeless moment everything stopped. The scene was laid out in her mind like a historical tableau: the French swordsman with his two-handed sword, the raised scaffold, the kneeling figure, dressed finely but seeming so small despite the proud straightness of her spine. Anne allowed herself a tiny smile. 

  
The taste of death vanished, and she drew in a deep, deep breath of the fresh air. 

  
The sword met her neck, and cold pain exploded through her body. She screamed, but no sound came out. She was falling, her head tumbling from her shoulders, darkness crashing over her, the taste of blood on her tongue-

  
Anne woke with a bump as she landed hard on the floor. Blood spattered from her lips onto the carpet; she was distantly aware of a pain in her tongue where she’d bitten down hard during her nightmare, but it didn’t matter.

  
She couldn’t breathe. 

  
She pushed herself up, her hands scrabbling at her throat, where her scar seemed to be trying to strangle her. Pain pulsed sharply, cruelly through her neck, cutting off her airway. 

  
Her fingers found the leather of her choker. She tore it off, desperate to release the agonising pressure, but it did nothing. Her attempts to suck in oxygen were becoming erratic, each breath slamming into the barrier of pain in her throat and refusing to go any further. Her heart was fluttering weakly, her chest was heaving. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a constricted wheeze. 

  
She could feel tears streaming down her face and blood on her lips. That taint of death was on her tongue, and through her panicked jumble of almost-thoughts it occurred to her that she might be about to die, again. 

  
Her fingers clutched around her scar and she tried one more time to scream. A wet, shrill cry tore free of her lungs. The fear in her own voice was pitiful. 

  
The dressing room door slammed open. 

  
Jane, still in her stage outfit, was framed in the doorway for a moment as she took in the scene. Then she said ‘Anne!’ and charged into the room. 

  
‘Anne, what’s wrong?’ she asked, kneeling in front of the other queen. ‘Talk to me, sweetheart.’

  
Anne gasped weakly, still scratching at the scar around her throat.

  
‘Can’t…’

  
‘Can’t? Can’t what, love?’

  
‘Can’t… _breathe_ ,’ she choked out, more tears flooding down her cheeks.

  
Jane reached over, gently but firmly grabbing Anne’s wrists and pulling her hands away from her neck. Her skin was covered in angry red marks, scratches cutting brightly across the thick, pale scar which circled her neck.

  
‘Anne, listen to me. It’s okay. You’re okay.’

  
Anne shook her head weakly, sobbing and then struggling to recover her breath. 

  
‘No love, no, shh. It’s alright. It was just a nightmare, it wasn’t real.’

  
She reached up, taking Anne’s face in her hands, forcing her to meet her eyes. 

  
‘Focus, dear, focus on me. Just breathe in…’

  
Anne found and gripped Jane’s sleeves, holding onto her desperately as she forced her gasping to stop, and sucked in a proper breath.

  
‘And breathe out.’

  
The breath left all in a rush, and again the pain clamped down, threatening to suffocate her. Jane must have seen the panic in her eyes, because she hushed her softly.

  
‘Shh, it’s okay, Anne. Just breathe in again… and breathe out. Good girl. One more time…’

  
Gradually – very, very slowly, it seemed – the pain ebbed away, and the pressure with it. As oxygen returned to her lungs and the panic slipped back into the dark corners of her mind, rational thoughts began to return. 

  
Her tongue hurt, and her knees were aching. How long had she been kneeling? The rest of her body was so heavy. It felt like she hadn’t slept in days. Tears were still dripping from her face and her limbs were shaking.There were four other people standing over her, and she didn’t remember them coming in. 

  
‘Annie?’ Kat asked, sounding tentative. ‘You okay?’

  
Anne gave her cousin a watery, slightly bloody smile, which broke and fell apart into a tearful grimace. 

  
Jane helped Anne onto the couch and then surrendered the role of caretaker to Kat, who plonked down and pulled her cousin into a tight hug. Anne curled gratefully into the embrace, slinging trembling arms around Kat’s shoulders and burying her face in the curve of her neck. She could feel the velvet choker Kat wore, so similar to her own, and could imagine the nearly identical scar that it hid. Their scars linked them, more than their blood, and she felt a hot, sickly surge of resent at the fact.

  
If Kat was having the same thoughts, she hid it well. She was murmuring soothingly, rubbing her back while Cathy worked on undoing her elaborate space buns; she wouldn’t go on for the next show tonight. It was a silent agreement the six of them had; if you had an attack, you were off for the next show. Recovery was more important than crowd-pleasing.

  
They all stayed until the evening show called them away. By then Anne had stopped trembling, stopped fearing that every breath she was taking could be the last easy breath she might have. She could still feel the panic lurking in the shadowy corners of her mind, but she was able to push past it now. 

  
She slowly went through the motions of cleaning herself up, changing out of her stage outfit and into a comfortable hoodie and jeans. She brushed out her hair and put it up again, working methodically, slowly, taking comfort in the mundanity of it. She was okay. She was breathing. She was alive.

  
When she’d removed the last glittery green traces of eyeshadow and hung up her outfit, she got down on the floor and scrubbed the blood out of the carpet. She probably didn’t have to, but she wanted this day over with, and it simply wouldn’t end if she left traces of it behind. 

  
Finally, she dug her choker out from under a chair, where she’d tossed it in her air-stricken panic. It wasn’t badly damaged. The clasp had given way, but that could easily be replaced. She’d ask Jane where to get a replacement. Until then, her other chokers would do. They were all at home, of course. So she sat and waited for the others to return, staring at herself in the makeup station mirror, watching as the red marks on her neck slowly faded and feeling her tongue sting in her mouth. 

  
The show ended. They all went home. Kat asked Anne if she wanted to have a sleepover in her room and Anne must have said yes, because the next thing she was properly aware of was her cousin handing her a hot chocolate and clambering into bed beside her. 

  
‘Are you sure you’re okay, Annie?’ she asked, after Anne had stared into her mug for two minutes without speaking. 

  
Anne roused herself, looking up. She didn’t bother faking a smile. Kat could always tell a fake smile. Instead she thought for a moment. She swirled the melting marshmallows in her mug with her finger, and put it in her mouth. It was sweet. Not a hint of bitterness. 

  
‘You get them too, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘The pains.’

  
Kat looked down at her hands, tight around the TARDIS mug Anna had bought her for her birthday.

  
‘Yeah. Not as much as I used to, but… sometimes.’

  
She looked sidelong at Anne, who was playing with her marshmallows again. 

  
‘How often do you get them?’

  
Anne shrugged, scooping molten marshmallow into her mouth with a finger. 

  
‘Sometimes, badly. More often, less badly. It just aches sometimes, y’know? Or it feels tight and twingey and it’s hard to breathe.’

  
 _And I can taste death_ , she thought, but couldn’t bring herself to say aloud. 

  
Kat nodded solemnly, took a sip of her hot chocolate.

  
‘It’ll be okay, though,’ she said, with her light certainty. ‘It can’t really hurt you now. I mean, it can hurt, but it won’t, like, harm you. Well it won’t… my words aren’t working but you know what I mean.’

  
Anne smiled at her, just a soft upward pull of the lips. 

  
‘Yeah. I know.’

  
She leant against Kat’s shoulder and took a long drink from her mug. The hot chocolate stung her bitten tongue, and it tasted like being alive. 


End file.
